Retired generals back FLOTUS in food fight

First lady Michelle Obama has an unexpected force backing her up in the simmering fight over school lunch standards: retired admirals and generals.

Mission: Readiness, a group of nearly 500 former military leaders, is planning to “storm the Hill” when Congress comes back to town next month and urge lawmakers to keep new school nutrition standards intact.

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“We’re not going to retreat our way out of the problem,” said Lt. Gen. Norman Seip, who served in the Air Force for 35 years and is now a vocal advocate for the group.

Formed in 2008, Mission: Readiness aims to ensure kids are healthy and educated enough to serve in the military — or just be productive civilians. For the top military brass, the obesity epidemic is increasingly seen as a threat to national security.

About 75 percent of young adults are not eligible to serve in the military because of obesity, lack of education and/or criminal records, according to Defense Department data cited by the retired military leaders.

The organization strongly backed the 2010 Healthy Hunger-Free Kids Act, a bipartisan law that overhauled the National School Lunch Program and set new health standards for all food sold in schools. Now, the admirals and generals are gearing up for a back-to-school campaign to ensure that Congress doesn’t weaken the standards this school year — or in 2015, when the law is set to be reauthorized.

The new requirements, a few of which are kicking in this school year, mandate more fruits and vegetables and less fat and sodium, and require all cereal grains — from bread to tortillas — be whole grain-rich. The Department of Agriculture notes that more than 90 percent of schools have so far complied with the phased-in rules — and USDA has granted many new flexibilities for schools — but some school districts are still struggling. They say the standards are too prescriptive and kids are turning away from school cafeterias.

House Republicans inserted a provision into an agriculture spending bill that would have allowed schools losing money under the new rules to opt out of all the standards for a year. The move sparked a bitter political fight, with the first lady coming out strongly against relaxing the rules.

The generals were not pleased, either.

Mission: Readiness flew in four retired generals from Kentucky last month to meet with Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, to discuss their concerns.

Maj. Gen. D. Allen Youngman, who served for more than 34 years in the U.S. Army, National Guard and Reserve, reminded Rogers that in Kentucky they used to sell cigarettes in schools.

“Nobody’s looking back on that as the good ol’ days,” said Amy Dawson Taggart, national director and founder of Mission: Readiness. Just like cigarettes have been kicked out of schools, so must junk food.

“He’s very concerned about his own district,” she said of Rogers, noting that Kentucky has some of the highest rates of obesity in the country. “I think he’s also hearing a lot [of concern] from school nutrition directors.”

The School Nutrition Association, which represents 55,000 school cafeteria administrators, has been active in its lobbying push to relax the standards and give schools more flexibility. But the rank and file of Mission: Readiness is ramping up its engagement on Capitol Hill to fight back. Its message is simple: Retreat is not an option.

The group will be releasing a national report with that very title in September, along with a handful of state-level reports targeting lawmakers who are central to the school nutrition debate.

“A far better course is to ensure schools that are struggling to implement these standards get more support,” said Youngman in a recent letter to lawmakers. “Simply put, we cannot have a sound battle plan for the war on obesity if our children are chowing down on unhealthy foods in the places where they spend so much of their time.”

Seip has seen firsthand how effective military brass can be on the Hill in tying public health issues to national security.

“They sit there and they go ‘holy smokes,’” he said. It’s not necessarily the message they’re expecting to hear from a retired general. “It’s pretty funny to watch their jaw drop.”

The national security angle is also helpful for giving political cover to offices who might not normally support aggressive federal efforts aimed at obesity or other health issues, he said.

Tracy Fox, a Washington, D.C.-based nutrition policy consultant actively engaged in the school lunch fight, sees the retired military leaders as a helpful ally.

“I think Mission: Readiness brings a much-needed voice to the discussion,” said Fox, who served in the Navy as a registered dietitian. “They have been helpful in communicating with both sides of the aisle — particularly with those on the right.”

While Mission: Readiness has certainly picked sides in the current food fight, the group maintains that it is staunchly nonpartisan. Despite being in agreement with the first lady in the school lunch debate, it doesn’t coordinate with the White House.

“We chart our own course,” said Dawson Taggart.

“It’s not conservative common sense or liberal common sense; it’s just plain common sense,” said Seip on having strong school nutrition standards.

In addition to its food work, Mission: Readiness is working to get more physical education back into schools and promote safe walkways to and from schools. The group is also not afraid to jump into local fights. Dawson Taggart describes — with horror — that some schools are now being built “literally without gyms.” Members recently mobilized and helped defeat a measure in Florida that would have allowed students to opt out of PE to take a digital learning class.

But this fall, the retired admirals and generals are going to be keeping the pressure on Congress and school nutrition. “We’ll be storming the Hill,” said Dawson Taggart. It’s all part of “bringing out the big guns for the kids.”